As Time Goes By
by Pepper Lane
Summary: Luna Lovegood and Viktor Krum may not be your average couple, especially since they are caught in the middle of a war that they never anticipated. Their relationship is slow to start, but positively delightful to witness. Slightly AU, NO SMUT.
1. Chapter 1

_DISCLAIMER: I am making no money off this, and this site isn't either. This is purely fan-fiction written by a weird person who has absolutely nothing better to do than write this stuff. I don't own Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Snape, etc. J.K.R. does._

This is a Viktor Krum/Luna Lovegood piece, and therefore (in that respect) AU. But we're keeping pretty much to canon for the rest of the story. Hope you enjoy!

**As Time Goes By**

_By Anachronistic Anglophile and Pepper Lane _

The Tri-Wizard Tournament, with all of its trials and tribulations, had concluded, and the students of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were assembling to leave. Some grumbled about leaving, others were just tired, but ultimately there was a sense of dissatisfaction and unhappiness in the air. There was the disgruntled suggestion that Harry did not deserve the prize after what had happened, a sentiment shared by many. It was popularly believed that Harry—though he and the other contestants had integrity unparalleled by other past participants—was a cheat and a liar, but others argued that since Hogwarts did lose one of their contestants, it was all right in the end.

Of course, the accusation that The Dark Lord had returned was one that hung heavily over many a disappointed heart. Numerous doubted the feasibility of the accusation, and many were simply confused about it, but those who took Dumbledore and Harry seriously were terrified.

Some, however, had more important things on their minds.

Luna wove her way through the crowd of students in the midst of their farewells; friends embraced each other tearfully, couples calling to each other to write long, long letters over the summer. Her long blond hair streaming behind her in a way that was rather becoming (not that she noticed), she vaguely wandered over to the great shadowy ship of Durmstrang, looking for one particular tall, dark head above the crowd.

"Lunah! Lunah!"

Turning towards the sound, Luna spotted Viktor Krum in the mass of people. He had as happy an expression as he could manage on his face, and she waded over to the tall, dark-haired boy with heavily-knitted eyebrows.

"Hello, Viktor." Her sweet, dreamy voice glowed with friendship as she embraced the boy, her newest and best friend of that year.

"Hello, Lunah."

As romantically aloof as Luna was, she chose not to hear the slight ache in his voice, which betrayed his wish for something beyond friendship. Instead, she smiled and looked at him directly in the eye, in her penetrating way.

"Are you happy to be going home? I know that I would be if I were you."

Viktor nodded his elegant figure, leaning just so slightly towards her.

"I am," he said plaintively, "But also, I am sad."

"Oh," Luna said, and warmly said nothing. She could tell that he wanted to say something that was important to him.

"Lunah," Viktor said, trying to be a smidgen formal, "May I ask of you one question?"

"Of course," Luna said, serene.

Not changing the subject as completely as he seemed, he began to phrase his question by starting with a prelude.

"We have been friends, little Lunah," Krum began, biting the inside of his lip. "You were so good as to come with me to the Yule Ball, and we have had many helpful conversations."

"Like about your dad?" Along with many pureblood boys, Luna had discovered that Krum had a difference in opinion concerning the discrepancies in a diplomatic fashion. In response to her reminder, Krum grimaced but did not turn red in anger.

"I have to thank you, Lunah, for you have helped me understand the ways of my father better than has any friend of his, or even my mother. When I return to my homeland, I will no longer be angry. It is your fault, Lunah, that I vow to put aside my anger. It is, as you said, only the result of his upraising which prejudices him against my Quidditch."

"It may be hard to reconcile, but think about how much he loves you; maybe it will be easier," she consoled him. "But didn't you say you had a question?"

"You wait," he intimated quietly, and appeared to steady himself. "Lunah," he addressed her further, "Though you have helped me, I wish to say: I value you more than for but your helpful self."

She did not understand his slightly garbled syntax.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to say is this," Viktor began, more urgently. "You are original, Lunah, there are none in the world like you."

"Durmstraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang!" came a military-like call from the crow's nest of the enormous transportation vessel, and all the young men began to rush towards it.

"I'm afraid I don't understand," Luna replied, noticing that their time was limited.

Giving up, especially as he was jostled by one or two of his comrades, Krum slipped a gentle kiss on Luna's cheek, and closed her hand around a piece of parchment.

"You are but young, Lunah. Write to me in my homeland."

He kissed her hand in farewell, gave a slight bow, and tore his eyes away from her as he joined his fellow students.

Luna stood and watched impassively as the young Durmstrang men boarded the flying ship. Not knowing if he would see, she raised her hand to briefly wave as the ship closed up and began to rise.

When it had disappeared from sight, Luna sighed. She felt as though she had lost his friendship.

However, she still had his address in Bulgaria. Reasonably optimistic that he would reply, she walked back in the direction of her common-room, already composing a little letter for him in her head.


	2. Chapter 2

_DISCLAIMER: We aren't just kidding when we say that we aren't J.K.(R.) Or J.R.R. Tolkien, for that matter. _

**As Time Goes By**

**Chapter 2**

**By Anachronistic Anglophile & Pepper Lane**

_Dear Luna,_

_Hello, dear girl. I hope your summer has been most well. I think my poor English writing, it gets better with all my letters to you. Perhaps sometime you may show me correct grammar. It is difficult for me, English grammar, but I will not be minding it so much if you may teach me._

_My father is much more better than he was. The surgery was very full of pain, for him and me, but I believe we will never 'cross swords' again, as you would say. I can not say thank you enough times for you helping me to come over my problems with him. We would not be so strong if you had not helped me. You are so very lovely, and clever. You are like a woman in your mind. I still think you are more original than anyone else in the world._

_I would like to say also, I am coming to England very soon. I would want to see you when I got there. _

_My hand hurts from writing English. I will write soon, after you write me again._

_V.K._

This was the third time she had read his latest letter, and each reading made her happier. Her dear friend was resolving issues with his father, _and_ he was finally coming back to England to visit. Not only that, but she identified the distinct traces of a Bulgarian Buttonback Fairy on the letter's parchment. His pockets would surely be full of them when he came.

"Where do we have some thimbles, Daddy?" she asked as her father, Xenophilius, frowned over his Grumblecake recipe. He had already mixed a generous tin of crumbled pound cake, vinegar, and potato skin shavings for the benefit of some traveling Tiny Gorger Frogs that were in the backyard pond.

"I do believe I have some in my box of shoe-strings," Xeno replied absently, "Why, are we to have an invasion of Soft-Headed Nymphs again?"

"No, but I'm expecting an infestation of Bulgarian Buttonbacks soon. You know it's best to accommodate them." She smiled cheerily and skipped away, while Xeno nodded vaguely, attentive to his Grumblecake recipe.

_. . . x . . . X . . . x . . ._

It had been a full year since the end of the Triwizard Tournament, a year full of (as Luna herself blandly put it) excitement and danger. As part of Dumbledore's Army, Luna had many new acquaintances, including Harry Potter and his little coterie, and had even been honored to share many interesting adventures full of secret meetings in the Room of Requirement, thestral-riding, combat with Dolores Umbridge, and even battles against Death Eaters. All in all, she felt being part of the D.A. was like having real friends.

Over the first two weeks home from Hogwarts, she had memorialized the leaders of the D.A. on her ceiling, painting the heads of Ginny, Neville, Harry, Ron, and Hermione in delicate and attentive detail. It was fun, pretending to paint like Michelangelo, on an improvised scaffold made of two ladders and some boards. Though, she did get a rather irritating bump on her head when her pet boar Bilbo came waddling through her room with the careless airs of a bull in a Dresden shop, which caused her to fall and have a mildly inconvenient fainting spell. This meant that Xenophilius, with surprisingly good sense, forbade her from finishing until he could supervise.

This in turn meant that Viktor's head had to wait, but Luna knew how to be patient. Besides, since now she knew that he was coming to England, she thought it better for her project to see him before she painted him. Perhaps he would even sit for her? She did so love to draw people, but most of the time she did it from memory. Her dad said it was better that way. Luna was more ambivalent.

She reflected upon this while going through Xenophilius' shoe-string box, searching for thimbles in which to serve the Buttonback fairies their customary drink of orange-juice, cayenne pepper, and cocoa. Whilst in the midst of her musings, she managed to upset the neat stack of the little metal objects that she had built, and they tumbled all over the floor.

It occurred to her that the thimbles, as they rolled under the bed, chair, and bed-side table, resembled little earwigs darting into the furthest recesses of shadows, scrambling for safety from a vicious broom.

_. . . x . . . X . . . x . . ._

Viktor Krum showed his sullen face at the Lovegoods' door not two days later. Silent but reassuring, he met her with eyes that seemed to expect a hysterical female.

Luna just smiled at him, her eyebrows raised in her perpetual expression of interested surprise. Silly Viktor, he should know her better; she was not a woman who would burst into histrionics just because an old friend came to call, near-unexpected or not. She supposed that she looked a tad unconcerned, as though she had seen him yesterday and every day since the summer began, but she did not believe in making a big ado over nothing. No point in fussing, her dad loved to say.

"Dobre došãl, Viktor," she said, welcoming him in his language, as plainly as she ever had. Her Bulgarian was limited, but she was glad to see the smile in his eyes when she showed that she remembered what he had taught her.

Somewhat astonished, though not apparently ungrateful, Viktor made a low bow.

"Zdravejte, my dear, sweet Lunah," he similarly greeted her, drawing out the last syllable of her name as though he relished the very saying of it.

"Do come in," Luna said with an aloof but hospitable smile. She went the kitchen, Viktor following her with a slightly dreamy look on his angular face. "You must be hungry after that tiresome Apparation trip from Bulgaria. I'll get you something to eat."

"Thank you, dear Lunah; you are so considering of all things."

"Not at all," she replied lightly as she rummaged through the cupboards. "I daresay I do have something that the Bread Bunnies haven't gotten their paws on yet," she said, as casual as though remarking on the weather. She pulled out a loaf of rye and began to slice off pieces.

Viktor frowned. "Bred Bunnees?"

Luna nodded. "They like to burrow in loaves, you know, and take out the soft parts of the bread to make their nests. Haven't you ever come back from the baker's and discovered that there was an enormous cavity inside? That isn't the fault of the baker; it's the Bread Bunnies. You can tell, because they never touch the crust."

Viktor's eyes continued to dance in delight. "That is ingenious. I never thought of that…phenomenon…in that way, before. As always, you enlighten me."

She simply gave him one of her peculiar smiles and began adding ham to the bread slices.

As Viktor watched her, warmly and longingly, he thought that no one could make ham and rye look as beautiful as she did.

_. . . x . . . X . . . x . . ._

Review…Do tell us what you think…

**And apologies for taking so long. We will be more prompt in the future!**

**~ Anachronistic Anglophile & Pepper Lane**


	3. Chapter 3

_Okay, everybody! Thank you for your patience, here's the next chapter. It takes place in the same summer as last chapter, the summer after Luna's fourth year (Harry's fifth year). Enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: If either one of us was pretending to be J.K. Rowling, we wouldn't both be trying to do it at the same time, on the same story. That would just be stupid. _

**As Time Goes By**

**Chapter 3**

**By Anachronistic Anglophile & Pepper Lane**

"Don't mind Bilbo, he's just being playful."

Viktor looked down at the hairy boar uncertainly; he wasn't used to large, tusked beasts rubbing their prickly-haired bodies against his leg. "If you say so, Lunah."

Luna tilted her head, examining Viktor's face closely, and looked back at her sketch. "You're very kind to sit for me, Viktor. It must not be very exciting to sit and do nothing." She stared at her sketch in an abstract manner, correcting a mistake in the eyebrows with the flick of her delicate finger.

"It is nothing," Viktor gave a barely audible sigh of relief to see the grunting boar lose interest in him and waddle listlessly out of the room. "I vould do anything for you." A slight ache leaked into his voice that betrayed a second meaning in his words.

Luna smiled pleasantly. "You are a very good friend," she mused, outlining his chin on the paper. "When I was in the DA, there were some nice people who talked to me, but I don't expect they would have gone fishing for Gulping Plimpies with me. We must do that again soon."

"It vas my pleasure, dear Lunah. I enjoy everything vith you."

She nodded and smiled in acknowledgment, but returned to her attention to her drawing. The eyes were giving her trouble, and she wanted to get the shape just right. Her artistic reverie was disturbed by Viktor's voice again.

"Lunah?"

"Yes?" A higher curve on the left eye would definitely be an improvement.

"I vish that perhaps, vee may go flying on the brooms together. It vould be fun, no? I may teach you tricks..." He looked at her mildly interested face for approval.

Her eyebrows arched in pleasant surprise. "Did you know, Viktor, that flying is a renowned cure for Wrackspurts?"

"You have told me so," Viktor said unabashedly. "That is, you have always said, vat keeps the Vrackspurds away from me."

"I suppose it would be fun, too," she contemplated, running her thumb along the edge of her artist's drawing book. "When should we go?"

"Today? After you are finished vith the sketch?" Viktor asked, a hint of eagerness in his request.

"Certainly, bidding that it doesn't rain, I should think." She smiled, her delighted eyes wandering away in a daydream. Viktor followed her gaze towards the sky, judged the blueness with the certainty of a career Quidditch player, and decided that rain was nowhere on the horizon.

Luna continued, "And perhaps we will spot a swarm of Wittpackle Flies. They prefer to congregate at treetop level."

"Vee vill go far above the treetops, dearest Lunah," Viktor murmured softly. "Vee vill find as many Vittpackle Flies as you vish." He stepped forward off the bed and grasped her free hand. Just as he raised it to his lips to impart a gentlemanly kiss, Bilbo the boar chose that exact moment to dash into the room, knocking Viktor's legs out from under him. Viktor landed on his rear with a sharp, painful thump. As he sat on the floor in humiliation, Luna looked at him with gentle, inquisitive concern.

"Are you alright? I'm dreadfully sorry about Bilbo's behavior; he's most stubborn about his house-training, and we haven't made any headway for months." Setting down the sketch, she helped Viktor up by the arm.

In an attempt to regain his lost dignity, Viktor straightened and completed his former endeavor to accost the fair maiden's hand.

"Never trouble yourself, Lunah. I am vell, most particularly because I am vith you." He repossessed his seat on the bed. "Vill you be done very soon?"

"Oh, not really, but I can finish it later if I like. I don't usually finish these things, you know; I rather like imagining how it could have been, rather than being limited by how it is."

So saying, she laid down her charcoal pencil and paper, and looked around the room for her shoes, which did not appear to be anywhere.

"Oh, those bothersome Nargles!" she lamented placidly, "They've gotten my shoes again! I'll just get some boots from the hall closet."

. . . x . . . . X . . . x . . .

Not too much later, Luna and Viktor were outside in the summer morning, rising into the air and circling slowly around the house while Luna practiced keeping her balance.

"I'm not very good with brooms, I'm afraid," she confessed as she wobbled. "I've always preferred to ride a Thestral, if I must fly at all."

"A Thestral?" Viktor was incredulous.

"Oh, yes, a Thestral. We have them at Hogwarts, you know."

Polite but flabbergasted, Viktor inquired, "How in the vorld did you get to ride a Thestral? And, vasn't it terrible to ride an animal that…how vould you say…you can not see?"

"Oh, I can see Thestrals," Luna replied flippantly. "So it's not nearly as scary as riding a broom, for me."

Quiet, Viktor stared ahead for a moment, then rapidly commenced an incredible somersault in the air. Once he was upright again, he asked, as though nothing had happened, "Vot is the reason that you see the Thestrals?"

"My mum died when I was nine, in a rather bad potions mix-up. She substituted asphodel for the wings of ash-winged moths, and the entire lab combusted. I happened to have been locked in the desk-drawer and I saw it happen."

Aghast, Viktor marveled at the complacency with which she relayed the information. He did not bother to ask why she had been locked in the desk-drawer, because it was fairly obvious that it had saved his beloved from the fire. Instead, he latched on the aspect that Luna (at a tender age) had watched her own mother die as a result of a blundering chemical mishap.

"My dear Lunah," he breathed, "That is horrible."

"Yes, I am still rather sad when I think about it at times," she replied, staring off in the distance. "We never had pot roast again," she added enigmatically. For an instant, her eyes appeared a bit glassy, but it might just have been a reflection of the sunshine.

His heart bursting with affection for the girl, Viktor made a few graceful, impressive swoops in the air. It would not be fitting for him to embrace her, as much as he wanted to do so. She did not understand, he knew, that he was thoroughly in love with her, but he treasured the feeling in spite of himself.

"I vish to tell you something that I think is good, Lunah," he told her when they had alighted on the ground and put their brooms away. They were sitting on a half-rotten log in Luna's untidy backyard, which served as a grand breeding-ground for all sorts of magical flora, fauna, and fungi.

"What?" Her eyes, luminous and bright after their little escapade in the air, met his pleasantly.

He tore his eyes away from hers, and focused on his carefully-polished dragon-hide boots. "I am going to stay in England for a long vhile. They have made me an Ambassador to Bulgaria, my home country."

"Oh, wonderful!... well, I can't say I'm very surprised." She looked over at him, pushing aside the scraggly blond locks that the wind had blown in her face. "Quidditch could never be your official career, you see," she asserted, smiling. "You're too intelligent."

Viktor's mouth formed a small, quizzical smile at the strange compliment. "I thank you, but perhaps you think too greatly of my ability. I vould not have accepted the offer, I must say, except for one thing."

Steeling himself visibly, he raised his chin and looked at her, prepared to make his declaration of love—but Luna's attention was suddenly focused on some invisible animal in the brush. Her ears were perked and her top lip was curled under. Viktor bit his tongue, realizing that perhaps it was too early to make his case known. She was barely fifteen, after all...

Suddenly, Luna's head turned back to him, and she asked pointedly, "What one thing?"

He shook his head. "I... vant to join the Order of the Phoenix," he stated, eluding his truest reason.

Luna nodded in approval. "That is very noble and very brave."

Sadly smiling, Viktor felt his heart warm at the fact that she thought him noble and brave, but he still felt the agony of wanting to tell her, _I'm doing it for you, because I want to protect you, because I love you._

"I have to make my dad some dinner, or he'll forget to eat entirely," Luna said, standing, "Would you care to eat with us, too?"

Knowing that Luna's dinners were entirely passable, if not delicious, Viktor nodded. "Of course I vould."

As he followed her into the house, he told himself, "I vould follow you to the end of the vorld."

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_OK, third chapter done. As you can see, Viktor is still having pronunciation problems with his English, but is getting better as he spends more time with Luna. ^_^_

_In the following chapters, things will pick up speed as the DA is reformed, the War begins, and Viktor & Luna's friendship is tested for the first time._

_Please review.... constructive criticisms, feedback, and requests are welcomed! _

**~Anachronistic Anglophile & Pepper Lane**


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